


Switcheroo

by TurtleTotem



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [4]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Bodyswap, Charles in a Wheelchair, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 21:05:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9566297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: Charles and Erik are bodyswapped by an Asgardian artifact. On Tumblrhere.





	

Whether it was truly magic or “sufficiently advanced technology,” as the saying went—or whether the two concepts were synonymous, as Thor kept insisting—the outcome was the same. When he and Erik both reached for the artifact, pulsing gently in the dark chamber, their fingers brushed the bright stone and each other simultaneously. And Charles felt a disorienting jolt, not quite painful but certainly not pleasant, all the way down to his toes.

His _toes._

He was _standing_ , he realized, and they had to have entered an astral plane or something, a dream world or—

The words died on his lips as he turned, wobbly on unaccustomed legs, and saw—himself instead of Erik, still in his wheelchair, looking up at him with wide confused eyes. With a voice utterly familiar in tone and accent despite its all-wrong source, he said, “Charles, what’s happening? Why can’t I feel my legs?”

 

“It’s temporary,” Charles said, not for the first time, as he and Erik stared at each other in their palatial Asgardian chamber. Originally, of course, they’d been given separate rooms, like everyone else at the Yggdrasil Peace Summit, but this was the one personalized for Charles’s particular needs. Now they were Erik’s needs, and since Erik had no idea how to handle them on his own, they’d be sharing. “Dr. Foster and the Asgardian scientists are already all over this, I’m sure they’ll have it reversed in no time.”

Erik just nodded, absently kneading one leg and staring into space. It was like looking into a mirror from 1962, when the loss of his legs had been too huge and frightening to fully contemplate even as it was happening.

“Hey,” Charles said, nudging Erik’s shoulder. “You’ll be all right, Erik, you—”

“Stop trying to comfort me, Charles,” Erik said. _Setting this right means putting_ you _back in this chair and that’s no comfort._

Charles had been trying not to think about precisely that.

“The bathroom’s through here,” he said, instead of any of the contradictory things he was thinking. “I’ll show you how to get ready for bed.”

 

“This is such bullsh—” Erik snarled, after his fourth failed attempt to deal with the indelicate necessities Charles’s body had to be walked through before he could go to bed. “This can’t really be how you function, _nobody_  could deal with this, you just want to see me suffer, want to laugh up your sleeve while I—”

“Do I look like I’m laughing, Erik?” Charles heard his own voice go icy. “Don’t flatter yourself. This isn’t about you. Now try again or you’re going to give _me_ a urinary tract infection.”

Erik stared at him a moment. The mismatched face and mind were still unsettling, but Charles knew that perceiving the mind at all gave him an advantage; all Erik was seeing right now was his own face glaring down at him. _Flaring his nostrils_ , Charles heard Erik notice, with a bewildering surge of peculiar affection—because that was something Charles did when he was upset, it was a glimpse of Charles behind that wrong face. It sparked guilt, too, and grief, a flash of Charles looking up from his arms on a beach.

Erik didn’t say a word. He tried the catheter again, and finally got them ready for bed.

“I didn’t realize,” Erik murmured as he wheeled over to the bedside. “I’d thought about it—it’s not like I’d never considered how much harder everything would be for you, now. But I’d never thought about… all the details, I suppose.”

“Is this the part where you apologize again?” Charles said, neutral to the point of blankness, because he’d had rather enough of that, really.

There was only one bed in the room, he realized distantly. Oh well; in Erik’s able, adaptable body he could make do on a sofa.

“No,” Erik said after a long moment. “Apologizing won’t help you. This is the part where I tell you we’re not switching back.”

It was Charles’s turn to stare.

“I did this,” Erik said. “It’s only fair that I be the one to live with the consequences.”

“Erik…” Charles didn’t know whether to laugh or roll his eyes at Erik’s dramatics—or be horrified at the idea of strong, vital Erik trapped in a wheelchair or—or be stupidly touched and he was not going to cry and he was certainly not going to be _tempted_ because that was not a shame he could live with, to know he would even consider putting someone else in his place, even Erik, somehow especially Erik—

“You don’t have to say anything,” Erik said, watching Charles’s eyes.

“Of course I do. I have to say that that’s ridiculous and we are certainly switching back.” When Erik would have argued, Charles reached out with his telepathy and closed Erik’s mouth for him. _No. The conversation is closed._

It wasn’t, in Erik’s mind, but Charles could feel him deciding not to push it—for now.

“Fine,” Erik said instead. “Let’s get me into bed, then.”

He was up to something, but Charles didn’t figure out what until, after transferring Erik to the bed, Charles bent over to reposition the pillows—and felt a brush of lips against the edge of his jaw.

He froze, not pulling away, not looking Erik in the eye.

The next touch was a hand, warm and gentle, almost shy, easing in between his legs, and—dear heaven, it was almost surreal to feel his body actually responding, so quickly and easily. Charles drew a ragged breath and drifted closer, without even meaning to, pressing the side of his face against Erik’s temple.

With his eyes closed it was easy to just see Erik in his mind’s eye, no confusing Xavier features in the way, to almost imagine that this was them back before everything went wrong—that Charles could feel the sweet, insistent pressure of Erik’s hand because they were in a hotel room in Omaha together, or a guest bed at the mansion, or a broom closet at the CIA facility…

“Let me,” Erik whispered, running his other hand up the inside of Charles’s shirt. “Let me give you this, while I can, while you can feel it, please—”

Charles cut him off with a kiss, fierce and demanding, and swung his leg over Erik’s lap.

“Don’t think you get to be a martyr here, by the way, you arrogant git,” Charles hissed into his ear, some breathless minutes later. “I’ve learned a few tricks over the years. ‘While you can feel it’ indeed, what do you think of _this_ —”

It turned out Erik was a very big fan of _this_.

 

Thor woke them the next morning, calling out cheerfully as he navigated their suite toward the bedchamber. Charles supposed they could have made some effort to disentangle themselves before they were seen, but he was really much too comfortable, cuddled deep into Erik’s arms, to care.

“Professor Xavier, Master of Magnetism, I do apologize for disturbing—” Thor checked visibly as he took in their positions, but carried on after a mere startled throat-clearing. “Most _heartily_ apologize for disturbing your rest, but Jane tells me that if you come to her quickly, she and the other researchers may have found a way—”

“Actually, my friend,” Charles said slowly, “I don’t think that will be necessary.” His voice came out in all its soft familiar tones, unmarred by strange vocal cords. He couldn’t feel his legs.

Erik had pulled away far enough to examine his own hands, arms, chest. He looked stricken. “Charles?”

“It reversed itself, then?” Thor sounded relieved. “That is most excellent. I must tell Jane immediately. I’m sure she will still wish to examine you both most minutely…”

“Of course,” Charles said lightly. “But I hope we can beg the indulgence of a few hours’ rest first, to recover?”

“Certainly.” Thor glanced between them for a moment, his mind spilling concern for Erik’s clear distress and a keen understanding of its likely cause. “I will call again in a few hours.”

“Charles,” Erik said when Thor had gone. He seemed incapable of saying anything further. He cupped Charles’s face in one big, long-fingered hand, which suited him much better than Charles’s little square hands had, and sighed heavily. “It’s good to see you in your proper face, at least.”

“I’m fond of it,” Charles murmured, leaning into the touch. “My own face, my own body. I’ve had them all my life, you know, and I’d rather keep them, for good or ill.” He leaned forward to brush a kiss against Erik’s mouth, gentle and brief. “It was sweet of you, though, to offer.”

Erik grumbled under his breath. “Remember that, then, next time I do something allegedly terrible.” He pulled Charles closer, some deep inner part of him unable to suppress relief at the return of his accustomed body, lean muscles and long limbs.

“I’ll remember,” Charles said. “Maybe it’ll be enough to keep me from convincing you you’re a hedgehog for the greater good. Meanwhile, we seem to have a few hours to kill…”

Erik grinned, already in the process of rolling Charles onto his back. “Tell me again how to do those tricks you taught me last night.”

Charles smiled and pulled Erik’s head down, intending to kiss him, but instead found himself simply gazing into his face, every angle and shadow of it so dearly familiar.

“A place for everything,” he murmured, “and everything in its place. Now pay attention this time, I’ve been told I’m a fabulous teacher so if you can’t learn it’s got to be your own fault…”

Thor and Jane came back to the bedroom door three times that morning before they felt it was safe to interrupt. Even then, they turned out to be wrong.


End file.
